


Eden's Apple

by spideywhiteys



Series: 365 Days of Naruto AUs [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Kinda..., M/M, Pre-Slash, Soulmate AU, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, apple picking, like it's not mentioned but it's implied to be romantic, meet cute, other characters kinda present or briefly mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 18:34:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28515030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spideywhiteys/pseuds/spideywhiteys
Summary: Naruto hasn't found his soulmate yet. He's fine with that, really. Probably. Maybe. It's just...sometimes it sucks to be the odd one out. While his friends walk hand in hand with their other halves, he's alone, wandering through the apple trees.
Relationships: Deidara/Uzumaki Naruto
Series: 365 Days of Naruto AUs [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2086938
Comments: 4
Kudos: 69





	Eden's Apple

**Author's Note:**

> DAY 2: Apple Picking ft. Soulmate AU / Naruto + Deidara

Autumn is the sharp, crisp bite of every breath, the crunch of dying leaves underfoot. It’s the chill seeping in under his collar and the warmth of hot coffee against his fingers. Naruto doesn’t drink much coffee to begin with, but something about the season makes it feel necessary. If he picks hot chocolate then Kiba will make fun of him, and the last time they got into an argument they got thrown out of Starbucks.

But cider? Oh, apple cider is something they can all get away with drinking without teasing because it’s a staple of the season. Perfectly sweet with the subtle, spicy tang of cinnamon and other additives that Naruto doesn’t care to remember—it’s amazing. Hot  _ or _ cold. On chilly days like today, hot is where it’s at.

He’ll even stand in line for it, stomping his feet and pulling his shoulders up around his ears to conserve body heat.

Apple-picking is another  _ staple of the season, _ and Naruto has always enjoyed going out with his family and friends. During his middle and high school years, he’d been less inclined to go out—thinking it childish—but now that he’s older it feels like he can’t wait for this time of the year to come around. 

(Having a Fall birthday might also have something to do with it. He’s not worried about getting older like other people are. What he loves to do is throw parties, and his birthday is a perfect time to do just that.)

Naruto is twenty-three years old. He’s not worried about getting older. He’s not worried about gray hairs or wrinkles or silly things like that. He wants to live to the absolute fullest every day, striving to fulfill his wants and pull his dreams from the clouds to make them a reality. He’s not worried about age.  _ He’s not. _

Naruto is twenty-three years old and he hasn’t yet met his soulmate. Some people go their whole lives without meeting their other half, missing each other because of distance, death or mere ignorance. Soulmarks were funny that way. They never really gave names. A lucky few might get a letter or part of the kanji from a name amidst the artsy mess scrawled across their skin. Most just had images of things, animals or colors that matched their soulmate. Occasionally a word—not a name, just a word. 

He is the last of his friends to find his soulmate. Sasuke and Sakura had been together since they were in diapers, Shikamaru and Temari since middle school, Sai and Ino since high school—and Chouji met Karui in college three years ago. Even Kiba had that weird cat girl he met at summer camp when he was fourteen and embarrassed about going to summer camp in the first place.

Uzumaki Naruto has been a one-man squad through it all, single as a Pringle and, internally, increasingly desperate to feel complete. It irks him a little to need someone to feel complete to begin with, but maybe that’s just his jealousy reeling its big-ass head. He doesn’t like to be jealous of his friends. He loves them, loves their love. He hates the accompanying loneliness, however. 

There was a time he wished Hinata was his soulmate, hoping that the stunning bloom of sunset explosions decorating the tanned skin of his back—with the very obvious and relevant kanji for  _ explosion _ smack dab in the middle, black and bold like it was painted with one of those big calligraphy brushes and the darkest pot of ink in existence—belonged to her.

His mom always found it hilarious, saying it only meant his soulmate was like her, and she couldn’t ask for anything more. His dad is marginally more protective and always seems somewhere between ecstatic at the thought of Naruto finding his other half and murderous at someone taking his  _ one and only precious baby boy away! _

(His dad’s words, not his!)

Bu yeah. Hinata wasn’t for him. She found her other half—er, halves? With Naruto’s cousin, Karin, and Sasuke’s friend Suigetsu. Thruple soulmates were exceedingly rare, with only around 1,839 documented threesomes in the world currently. Out of almost eight billion people, the odds seem astronomical. It’s crazy to think Hinata, Karin and Suigetsu actually fit into that documented category. 

He’s not jealous.

_ He isn’t. _

Impatient, probably. He’s always called that—but he prefers  _ eager. _

Anyway. He knows too much about soulmates and their statistics because of that  _ eagerness, _ always on the lookout on web forums dedicated to finding your other half. His teachers would have thrown a party if he’d shown half as much dedication to his work in school as he did with his hyperfixations. 

Naruto rubs his bright red nose and huddles close to Sasuke. The coat doesn’t feel like it’s doing much to keep him warm. He’s always preferred the sunshine and heat—his mother being from an island off the mainland, where the summer months were  _ hell-searingly hot. _

Sasuke, far too accustomed to Naruto’s breaches in personal space, resigns himself as an impromptu space heater. From Naruto’s other side, Sai steps in without a word and the three of them huddle together like penguins for warmth. 

Today is the annual Apple Picking Get-Together, established just two years ago and expected to continue until they’re all six feet under. Their group is all over the place, being as massive as it is, some already flitting through the trees with heavy bags of apples, some seated on scratchy hay stacks munching on sugared apple donuts—and then Naruto, Sasuke and Sai, waiting in line for steaming hot apple cider. Naruto, for himself, Sasuke and Sai at the behest of their girlfriends. 

“Dude it’s fuckin’ freezing.” He complains, teeth chattering. 

Sasuke grunts, “You should have worn that extra layer like your mom told you.”

“College hasn’t made you any smarter if you still think a jacket over a t-shirt will stave off the impending chill of winter.” Sai chips in with a subtle smile.

Naruto grumbles, boxed in by two dark-eyed men who’ve known him for too long. He presses his sunny grin into his old green scarf when the two of them move in closer like magnets, their body heat seeping through his thin layers.

When they make it to the front of the line, Naruto orders his single hot apple cider, and the other two walk away with one in each hand. Somehow, the sight makes something in Naruto’s chest hurt. It’s weird and he doesn’t like it. It’s not like he’s  _ alone, _ he has them both as his best friends. Has Shikamaru and Sakura and everyone else—everyone he could ever ask for. They’d run to him no matter what, and he’d do the same for him.

So why does he always feel so incomplete?

He hangs back a step and sips his hot cider a little too fast. The heat sears his tongue and he sputters and makes a scene of it. His friends laugh because it wouldn’t be  _ Naruto _ without a bit of dramatics, and Shikamaru makes a show of moaning and groaning before taking him to an ice bin to drop a few cubes in. Yet on the way, he can’t help but stare at Shikamaru’s back, imagining the decorative fan and spiraling purples painted under his jacket.

He just wants to know what it’s like.

* * *

After they’ve dumped their empty cups in the designated trashes, the ones still hanging around head into the orchard—meaning it’s just him, Sasuke and Sakura, as the others got tired of waiting—to actually do what they came here for. Pick apples. The two soulmates walk a few feet ahead of him, conversing lowly. Their bodies are always angled towards each other, their eyes always soft like melted caramel. It’s just the three of them, and while they do their best to include him when they hang out, Naruto always ends up feeling like he’s third-wheeling. Just a little.

Or maybe it’s just him.

“Idiot, hurry up.” Sasuke calls back. His dark eyes aren’t soft like melted butter when they look at Naruto, but that doesn’t mean Sasuke doesn’t love him.

He grins brightly and sticks out his tongue, “I’m giving you space to make a move, dude! You’re always so uptight, Sakura-chan’s back must hurt from carrying the entirety of your relationship.”

“Naruto…” Sakura groans like she knows he’s riling up Sasuke on purpose.

The Uchiha merely sneers and flips him off. “Fuck off.”

As usual, Naruto ignores him. At least the short interaction has shaken him out of his funk. He slides between them like he was made to be there, and they fit around him like puzzle pieces, like that’s where they were always supposed to be. Sometimes he wishes they could be a thruple.

“Hey, I bet I can get way better apples than you.”

A gleam enters Sasuke’s eyes, even as his mouth turns downward. It’s his  _ I’m interested but too cool to show it _ look. “Do you have to make a competition out of everything?”

Naruto smiles, wide and with teeth, “So you admit I’m better at collecting them than you, is that it? You already know so you wanna save yourself the embarrassment, huh?”

“As if,” Sasuke scowls, jabbing his finger into Naruto’s side until he squeals and dances away. “I’ll beat you in a heartbeat!”

Sakura turns her eyes skyward, “Apple picking!? Really guys?”

Naruto grips his apple bag tight and laughs as he all but dances away. 

There’s a big tree off to the left of the orchard.  _ Big _ is a relative term. It’s big when you consider the fact that it’s an apple tree, but Naruto can still wrap his arms around the trunk and grasp his hands together. It’s older than him and tall enough to hide his form in the wide, reaching branches that dip under the weight of the biggest apples Naruto has ever seen.

He’s always been active, trying every sport under the sun and getting chased by club members trying to recruit him.  _ Natural athleticism _ they called it, because if he put his heart into it he excelled in no time at all.

Unfortunately for his grades, that prodigious tenacity only applied to physical activities. 

Hoisting himself up with a grunt, Naruto scales the trunk and settles among the branches. As he makes his way up, he has to duck to avoid getting smacked in the head by the low-hanging fruit. Without gloves, the bark is rough and chilly, the cold seeping back into his fingers as the heat of the apple cider has long since faded.

With the apple bag hanging from the crook of his elbow, Naruto begins to pluck.

The apples here are huge, bigger than he remembers baseballs being. Some barely fit in the palm of his hand—and his hands aren’t especially small, not anymore. 

_ Hah, _ he grins to himself, fox-like mischief in the azure of his eyes,  _ I’m gonna beat Sasuke for sure. _

It’s not even that he cares about winning, it’s that he loves the familiar thrill of competition with his best friend. It helps soothe the void he feels when looking at everyone who has a piece of happiness he doesn’t. Even if he never has love like  _ that, _ he’ll always have  _ this. _

He keeps picking only the biggest and plumpest of the macintosh apples he’s perched amongst, until his bag is fit to burst. Trying to maneuver it while safely getting down becomes a struggle, and he almost loses an apple—which would be an absolute  _ crime _ because these apples are fuckin’  _ top notch _ and if they hit the ground from this height they’d split open or turn into one big mushy bruise.

He’s so focused—tongue sticking out and everything—that he doesn’t hear voices approach. On the last branch he has to jump. It’s not super far, and as long as he hits the ground in a crouch it hopefully won’t feel like absolute ass on his knees. Gathering the bag between his arms, he squats on the branch and takes a leap of faith.

So of course the back of his jacket snags on a branch at the very last second.

A sharp yelp escapes him as both his jacket and shirt are viciously tugged up, nearly choking him and exposing his bare flesh to the frigid cold. All that stored body heat under the fabric is ripped from him immediately. 

“Holy shit!”

Naruto tries to turn his head to see who’s behind him, but he can’t even make it that far with his jacket still threatening to choke him. His feet are on the ground, but he’ll have to drop the bag of apples to untangle himself. And he can’t do that, because he can’t crouch down to carefully place his prize-winning lot on the ground. The only option would be to drop it, and even at the smallest distance from the tips of his hanging fingers to the ground that means the ones of the bottom will  _ bruise. _

“Uh,” he starts awkwardly, “Sorry, is someone there? Do you mind helping me?”

There’s a long moment of silence, long enough that Naruto gets a little worried that he was hearing things—or worse, that it was a  _ ghost. _

“Can’t you just drop the apples?”

He sighs in relief. But then freezes again— _ could still be a ghost. _

“No way! These apples are my  _ babies! _ They’re absolutely perfect in every way, shape, and form and I’m gonna use ‘em to beat Sasuke!”

The voice sighs, “You’re really fuckin’ weird. Caught on a damn tree and thinking about  _ apples? _ ”

“It’s for a competition! And I will  _ not _ lose!” 

“Yeah, yeah,” the man grumbles, sounding so put upon that Naruto almost wants to roll his eyes, “Still stupid as shit.”

Fingers brush against his exposed back. Naruto shudders involuntarily, what feels like lightning shooting down his spine and spreading across every synapse. Hands untangle him from the tree, and his shirt and jacket fall back into place. He’s still freezing.

Naruto turns around.

Blue eyes, blond hair—not that same shades as him; a darker cerulean, a more burnt gold. Features that could pass for androgynous, but with a strong jaw and square, masculine hands. 

_ Stop looking at his hands. _

“Thanks! I’m Uzumaki Naruto!”

The other man looks at Naruto like he’s a weird puzzle, a hint of frustration in those darker blue eyes. Then he smirks, crooked and pretty. “Deidara. That’s a nice mark you have.”

Naruto rolls his shoulders, conscious of the explosion on his back. He grins foxily, feeling the odd tingle of butterflies in his gut. “It’s the best mark in the world, ya know!”

“You’re damn right it is!” Deidara suddenly shouts, a cross between determination and embarrassment on his face. Naruto has always been good at telling what other people are feeling, but it’s uncannily easy with Deidara. 

The other man rapidly unzips his jacket and wastes no time in pulling up his shirt. Like Naruto, he seems to have made the mistake of not wearing a lot of layers.

_ Nice, _ Naruto’s lizard brain thinks upon seeing the washboard abs. And then,  _ Oh. _

Because he sees the brilliant, elaborate mark painted across Deidara’s chest. Like a scene frozen in time; a sunny sky bleeding gold and orange, honey-colored trees curved around a fox. The colors on his own soulmark are eerily similar, even if the images themselves are entirely different.

“Uh,” he says dumbly, because Shikamaru is his thinking brain. 

Deidara grins like an absolute maniac. “Of course it’s the greatest mark in the world. Because it’s  _ mine, and so are you.” _

**Author's Note:**

> Follow / Support me on [Tumblr](https://spideyfoof.tumblr.com/) and let me know if you'd like to see more of this AU!


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